#sketchfactor

[w-nder2-blog]

Golden ball not recommended! But the views though... #staysafe #tonsai #climbing #sketchfactor (at Tonsai Bay)

[heyjbwhatareyoureading]

Georgetown retailers use an app to talk to each other and police, but some worry it has strayed to profiling.

[rosat92]

Critics Become Sketchy of SketchFactor App

A new app that has taken cyber world by storm recently has raised questions as to whether it is reliable or not. Sketch Factor, a community-driven navigation app, allows people to pinpoint areas that maybe “sketchy.” Users are able to mark on areas in the city where bizarre occurrences, crimes and hazards that have taken place. The aim is for others to navigate the city safely, while avoiding these places. According to SketchFactor Co-Founder and CTO Daniel Herrington, SketchFactor had 60,000 downloads within the first four days of its release.

Once you log into the app you are able to report your own “sketchy” experiences or view a map of other reports by users. The warnings are presented as multi-colored balloon figures that represent the level of danger. The green and yellow balloons represent what is described as “something else” or “weird” and is rated as 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-5. The orange and reddish balloons represent a higher level of danger on the sketchy spectrum, 3-5. Each description shows the name of the user, the time of day and the report.

However, this form of cyber-vigilance may not be as accurate as it may seem. The internet and the mobile world also allows users to express everything and anything, whether they believe President Obama is the devil in the flesh or whether Ebola is a form of population control. Some of the posts that I’ve come across after downloading the app are nothing but users trolling. One post from the West Ridge area reads, “My cat pooped on the bed IN BROAD DAYLIGHT,” labeling the SketchFactor scale at a 5. Another strange description reads, “There be great metal beasts here! Unless ye seek fast death, make sure you stay out of the concrete river,” with a rating of 5.

Although it doesn’t take a genius to decipher trolling from a serious report, who is to determine what is sketchy without particular bias and actual physical reporting? What may be a family-oriented community to one person may be perceived as a cesspool of gang activity and crime to a random tourist. Critics even say that the app furthers racial-profiling, because what really defines sketchiness? “In the short term, maybe it helps you avoid a certain block with a lot of street harassment,” sociologist Karen Gregory told the Washington Post, who has lectured on technology and urbanism. “But in the long term, it’s changing how you participate in a neighborhood, how you comport yourself, who you talk to…The bigger story is that we’re relying on data to inform our social interactions.”

Co-founder Allison McGuire refuted these claims by explaining the difference between sketchiness and safety. McGuire told The Wire, “This is not an app that's created for one type of person to report one type of thing. There's a reason we're called SketchFactor. Everyone experiences sketchiness. We're not SafetyFactor. We're not AvoidBlackPeopleFactor." You can down vote incidents you don't like and are offensive and mark them as spam. The app's algorithm is supposed to keep these particular posts out of your feed. Spam and offensive incidents get flagged for review, but the objective is to let people sift through the votes. According to McGuire, the posts do not center on the individual, but on what a collective crowd is saying.

Although more than half of internet users consist of trolling and offensives remarks, there are a handful of helpful tips from people on the app such as sightings of harassment or mugging. McGuire and Herrington may not have intended for the app to be controversial, but many are still taken back by the socio-economic separation that may be encouraged. The definition of sketchiness is not always universal.  

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/08/12/the-many-problems-with-sketchfactor-the-new-crime-crowdsourcing-app-that-some-are-calling-racist/

http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/08/sketchfactor-lost-its-anti-racial-profiling-partner-as-soon-as-it-launched/376047/

[yelpgasm-blog]

the neighborhood is frightening but the old jewish man sititing in the booth next to you will kvetch hilariously as you triple-orgasm, back-flip and get indigestion all at once!

Langer's. Los Angeles, CA

[urbangeographies]

New app will keep you away from 'sketchy' areas

NEIGHBORHOOD PROFILING? SketchFactor allows users to report on, read about, and navigate around potentially unsafe neighborhoods

This use of technology has all sorts of implications for class and race relations in cities. According to this news report in Caine's New York, the founders of Sketch Factor are bracing for potential complications from an app that asks anonymous users to judge a neighborhood's sketchiness. People's fear is inevitably subjective, playing on socially conditioned perceptions of danger. In fact, the site could be used to profile whole neighborhoods!

"We understand that people will see this issue," Ms. McGuire said. "And even though Dan and I are admittedly both young, white people, the app is not built for us as young, white people. As far as we're concerned, racial profiling is 'sketchy' and we are trying to empower users to report incidents of racism against them and define their own experience of the streets."

[tan3000]

lol, this ipad commercial needs a little more Fruitvale Station!

definitely having some fatigue with ads that feature prominently placed black people using high end products in a utopian environment. (I know it sucks, corporate america: you can't win when you go diversity, you can't win when you ignore and/or shoot us, argh!)

but what uncivilized wild wild west town is this where a n can go biking and frolicking around whilst using his ipad all unharassed and not shot at? I see at least three spots in the first thirty seconds where dude can be popped for riding/looking suspicious. is this real life or what, Apple? this looks more like a teaser for some slightly trickier level of target practice simulation (for police of the recently gentrified). "Try to nail the target, but don't damage the ipad!"

at this point the ad should be *here's all the unique ways Jason uses the ipad* and sixty percent of them end with him using the sketchfactor app and being shot by police for holding his device high in the air. sorta like this SNL sketch, but less absurd cause it's our topical reality, lollolol

[fabulizemag]

New Post has been published on Fabulize Mag! ...Beauty 24/7

New Post has been published on http://fabulizemag.com/2014/08/apps-to-detect-black-hoods-for-scary-white-people-this-is-not-a-satire/

Apps to detect black 'hoods' for scary white people, this is not a satire

Some white people are really out of control.

“This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.”

– some asshole republican

The app, SketchFactor, will be available on iTunes starting Friday. Its Manhattan-based creators, Allison McGuire and Daniel Herrington, hope that users will rate the “relative sketchiness” of a given area on a five-point scale. The app will also use publicly available data to help complete its sketchiness rankings. How are we supposed to define “sketchiness”? According to the Team SketchFactor blog, “it means an event that’s uncomfortable and out of the ordinary.” If the phrase “uncomfortable and out of the ordinary” sounds like a dog whistle for “minorities,” that’s understandable. After all, it’s easy to imagine a white dude who feels “uncomfortable and out of the ordinary” in a predominantly black neighborhood jumping onto SketchFactor and reporting that he felt “a lil sketched out LOL.”

What could possibly go wrong? That’s already been a primary criticism of the app. ValleyWag’s Sam Biddle expressed some of these exact reservations in a blog post Thursday afternoon. “Is there any way to keep white people from using computers, before this whole planet is ruined?” Biddle wondered upon discovering the app. (There is not.) It’s never a great sign when an app’s creators have to clarify that they are not “racists, bigots, [or] sexists” before the thing even launches. But in a phone interview with The Huffington Post, McGuire contended that an upvote-downvote rating system will keep super-racist posts from overrunning the app. She also noted that while users can search specifically for crime-related ratings, people can also limit their searches to “bizarre discovery,” “catcalling” or “racial profiling.”

SketchFactor co-founder Allison McGuire. “Wouldn’t it be useful to understand where stop and frisks are actually happening?” said McGuire. “My mission in life [...] is to give a voice to the voiceless. [SketchFactor] gives a voice to anyone with a smartphone.” For better or worse, that’s true. McGuire also clarified in an interview with Crain’s New York that people of all races, not just white people, can download the app. “Even though Dan and I are admittedly both young, white people, the app is not built for us as young, white people,” she told Crain’s. When asked by HuffPost if she’d expected the app to get some backlash, McGuire was resolute. “Absolutely,” she said. “We acknowledge our privilege.” “But let’s turn it on its head,” she continued. “This can really shed light on some interesting things happening in cities all over the U.S.” So how often does McGuire herself feel sketched out these days? Not very! “I live in New York now,” McGuire, who lives in the extremely affluent West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, told Crain’s New York. “So almost nothing’s sketchy to me anymore.” Funding for the app was provided by family and friends, according to McGuire.

My question is, will they make an app that will warn black and brown people they are in a high poice brutality district? Answer that Sway! Source: HuffPost

[binyen]

Nouvel article publié sur Binyen

Nouvel article publié sur http://www.binyen.com/2014/08/aux-etats-unis-une-application-pour-eviter-les-quartiers-chauds/

Aux Etats-Unis, une application pour éviter les quartiers chauds

L’application SketchFactor permet aux utilisateurs de reporter sur une carte les lieux où ils ont été témoins de situations douteuses. Au risque de conduire à une nouvelle forme de ségrégation urbaine. Depuis vendredi, une application disponible sur l’Apple Store fait débat outre-Atlantique. Baptisée «Sketchfactor» et pour l’instant uniquement disponible aux Etats-Unis, elle permet à ses utilisateurs de localiser sur une carte des lieux où ont pu être observées des situations louches ou douteuses (sketchy, en anglais), afin d’en avertir la communauté. Ainsi, lors d’une balade à pieds, il sera possible d’éviter les zones peu recommandables de la ville et de choisir un itinéraire moins «craignos».

Créée par deux New-Yorkais, Allison McGuire et Daniel Herrington, cette application a été la cible de nombreuses critiques de la part de la presse anglo-saxonne.

L’application permet à ses utilisateurs de décrire une situation douteuse, de la noter sur une échelle d’appréciation, et de la répertorier sur une carte interactive.

Bien que l’application soit utilisable par tous, comme le revendiquent ses créateurs, le risque de dévier vers une forme de racisme virtuel a été dénoncé par plusieurs médias. Selon le Huffington Post, SketchFactor permettrait ainsi à de jeunes Blancs de se balader tout en évitant les quartiers noirs peu fréquentables. En se servant du crowdsourcing (les données sont fournies par les utilisateurs) et non pas des données officielles et chiffrées de la criminalité, l’application offre une carte des lieux entièrement calquée sur les perceptions de ses utilisateurs, reproduisant ainsi les stéréotypes urbains.

Contactés par Libération, les créateurs SketchFactor n’ont pas souhaité s’expliquer. Ils se sont néanmoins défendus dans une tribune publiée sur leur site, arguant qu’il s’agit d’un «instrument disponible par tous, partout, tout le temps» et se défendant de l’accusation de racisme en mettant en avant la possibilité de dénoncer un épisode de contrôle au faciès (racial profiling) comme étant sketchy. Pas sûr que cela suffise à convaincre ses détracteurs, d’autant plus qu’en septembre dernier était sorti un site au doux nom de GhettoTracker.com, qui avait déjà provoqué l’ire des internautes américains. Le site, aujourd’hui disparu, permettait aux utilisateurs de noter les quartiers en fonction de leur sécurité.